Quick Chocolate Cupcakes with No-Powdered Sugar Vanilla Icing

I have a million cupcake recipes, but when I need cupcakes for an event, I still find myself scrambling for the perfect recipe to fit the occasion. Luckily, that wasn’t the situation this week. In fact, it was in reverse. I found this easy and good looking cupcake recipe, then got an email reminding me the Girl Scouts were meeting here. Perfect. In a matter of minutes, these were whipped up and in and out of the oven.

As for the icing, I was completely out of powdered sugar and decided to try a recipe made without it. The icing isn’t exactly quick, but it is easy if you have a stand mixer with a whip attachment. It takes a lot of whipping to get the sugar to dissolve, but with the stand mixer you can just leave it while you do other things.

The cupcakes were really good. You can’t taste the lemon from the lemon juice (which is there to add acid) and they’re definitely moist and light. The icing was interesting. It reminded me of a slick buttercream and had a very clean flavor, but it wasn’t as good as true buttercream — something I need to practice making (the kind with egg yolks — not the recipe on the back of the sugar box).

Anyway, it’s nice to have an easy scratch cupcake recipe like this. I plan on using it as a base cupcake while I work on interesting fillings and frostings (and getting over my issues with making true buttercream).

Cool in pan on rack 20 minutes. Remove to platter to continue cooling.

Whisk the flour and milk together in a small saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring until it starts to thicken. Cook 1-2 minutes more. Turn into a dish and let cool.

Beat together the butter and sugar, then beat in the cooled roux 2T. at a time. Continue to beat until frosting turns creamy rather than grainy. This takes a while – probably 6 to 10 minutes. Add vanilla and salt and mix until light and creamy. Frost immediately. You can keep the frosted cupcakes in the refrigerator and let them come to room temperature before serving. I also left a few in a sealed container at room temperature overnight and they were fine.

Comments

Flour icing — this is a first for me, haven’t heard of it before. I guess its nice to have an alternative in a pinch. Also an interesting idea about adding the lemon juice for acid. I thought non-Dutched cocoa was already pretty acidic, but I learned two new things with this blog post.

It’s so funny you’re posting this today, as I was just looking for a recipe of this type. I’ve been rather unhappy with the powdered sugar frosting lately – too sweet. Would you say this is less overwhelming with sweetness?

Usually I am very successful with following a recipe, but I tried a similar cooked flour icing recipe that required this technique and it failed miserably. I’m not sure if I didn’t judge the timing on the roux properly, or just how cool it needed to be before proceeding to the next step. I may have to try it again and hope for the best.

I have a similar recipe but instead of flour it calls for cornstarch. It is great & not too sweat. You make like an unsweetened milk pudding with the cornstarch & milk, then whip it into the butter & sugar. It taste almost like a whipped cream.

One trick to making less sweet powdered sugar icing is to add the powdered sugar really, really slowly while continuing to beat the butter. It’s possible to make a nice frosting while adding a lot less total powdered sugar.

i love cooked flour frosting! i tried it for the first time too when i was out of powdered sugar. i like the texture, and i think it’s good for cakes where you really want the flavor of the cake to stand out…not as sweet as powdered sugar buttercream, so it doesn’t overwhelm anything.

My issues with real buttercream revolve around the use of raw eggs since I usually bring in the thing I bake for my co-workers. I conquered my buttercream fears by making SMBC and checking the temperature of the whites to make sure they were pasteurized. It came out wonderfully…and now I’m afraid to try it again in case it was beginner’s luck!

I almost sent you a post yesterday to ask if you have ever made this cooked frosting! I can’t believe the timing. I tried it this weekend and despite whipping w/ a kitchen aid for 10 minutes, it was still grainy. After it sat overnight, it became creamy. Can you sub powdered sugar for the granulated? How is the red velvet frosting different? I used the frosting as a filling for “hostess” style chocolate cupcakes from Cook’s Country after their suggested recipe for filling was a flop for me. I always appreciate your quest for the best!

Christie, what a coincidence! I do have a similar recipe that uses flour and powdered sugar, but I don’t care for that one much at all. As for the graininess, some versions of this recipe use super fine sugar which probably helps make the job go faster, but I hardly ever have super fine sugar on hand.

I had to look back at the frosting I used for Red Velvet — the one I really liked and which reminded me of Hostess cupcake filling. Here it is. It’s almost the same as this one but has salt and less flour.

Make the frosting. In a heavy saucepan, whisk together 3 tablespoons of flour and 1/4 cup of the milk until smooth. Whisk in salt and remaining milk. Turn heat to medium and cook, whisking constantly, until mixture is thick and creamy. Let it cool completely.

Using your electric mixer, beat butter and granulated sugar until fluffy. Beat in the vanilla. Beat in the thoroughly cooled flour mixture. Beat and beat until the icing is fluffy and no longer grainy (this may take a while, depending on how good your mixer is). For this recipe, I recommend using a stand mixer.

The flour-paste buttercream used on the Waldorf Astoria cake originally called for Crisco – ick! I tried using all butter and wasn’t happy with it. Now I use stick margarine which I think is the happy medium. We like this icing cold so I store the cake in the refrigerator.

Crisco is fine by me too. Maybe it would be a “natural” for “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter”. Have you tried adding 2 Tablespoons of cocoa to the frosting? That seems to be the right amount for the recipe. I’m going to try it soon.

Wow! These tasted great! I did the Buttercream cupcakes. Amazing! I love this place! I just was looking up a recipe for snack for my 1st and 3rd grader. They loved them! Even my husband got so stuffed he couldn’t sleep. It was so much fun too.